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Transcript of Oral History Recording TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL HISTORY RECORDING Accession number S00543 Title (Not Applicable) Burnside, Dr Colin Campbell (Lieutenant) Interviewer Connell, Daniel Place made Not stated Date made March 1989 Description Dr Colin Campbell Burnside as a lieutenant Radar Officer, HMAS Hobart, interviewed by Daniel Connell for the Keith Murdoch Sound Archive of Australia in the War of 1939–45 Discussing pre-war employment; enlistment; acceptance into ASDIC; transfer to England and studying radar at Portsmouth; radar appointment to Adelaide; description of sinking of Rameses; intelligence reports on enemy radar sets; task of outfitting Hobart with radar equipment; involvement in selection and purchase of radar equipment for Hobart; installation of radar on Hobart; crew morale; shipboard life; post-war Japan; demobilisation; post-war employment opportunities. COLIN CAMPBELL Page 2 of 34 Disclaimer The Australian War Memorial is not responsible either for the accuracy of matters discussed or opinions expressed by speakers, which are for the reader to judge. Transcript methodology Please note that the printed word can never fully convey all the meaning of speech, and may lead to misinterpretation. Readers concerned with the expressive elements of speech should refer to the audio record. It is strongly recommended that readers listen to the sound recording whilst reading the transcript, at least in part, or for critical sections. Readers of this transcript of interview should bear in mind that it is a verbatim transcript of the spoken word and reflects the informal conversational style that is inherent in oral records. Unless indicated, the names of places and people are as spoken, regardless of whether this is formally correct or not – e.g. ‘World War Two’ (as spoken) would not be changed in transcription to ‘Second World War’ (the official conflict term). A few changes or additions may be made by the transcriber or proof-reader. Such changes are usually indicated by square brackets, thus: [ ] to clearly indicate a difference between the sound record and the transcript. Three dots (…) or a double dash (– –) indicate an unfinished sentence. Copyright Copyright in this transcript, and the sound recording from which it was made, is usually owned by the Australian War Memorial, often jointly with the donors. Any request to use of the transcript, outside the purposes of research and study, should be addressed to: Australian War Memorial GPO Box 345 CANBERRA ACT 2601 Identification: This is the first side, side 1, of the interview with Doctor Colin Campbell Burnside. The subject is HMAS Hobart. Doctor Burnside, let's just start out by talking a bit about your family background. I was the eldest of five sons. I went to Knox Grammar School till I was sixteen. We lived at Gordon, at 58 St Johns Avenue. I went to work in my father's business; to take over whilst he suffered an illness. What sort of business was that? Heliography, in the reproduction of plans by light. Um, this covers such prints as: blue prints, helios, photostats, dyelines ... and commonly used in buildings, survey work, engineering and all plan projects. Was it a fairly large business? Employed about thirty people and occupied the full basement of the original building 8A Castlereagh Street, Sydney – since demolished and replaced by a larger building. And so at the age of ... what, was that that you ... Sixteen. Um, I stayed there and worked full hours and went to the Sydney Technical College at night to get my Leaving Certificate. If you could just describe your work for me at the ... while your father was away. What were you doing on a day-to-day basis? Well, I must tell you I also learnt ... at the Sydney School of Mechanical Drawing whilst I was at school – two nights a week ... in Pitt Street – and that tuition gave me a very good grounding in drafting for engineering, for architectural work and for patent work. Um, so I did a lot of work in there which we placed ... or as a substitute for that which was previously all done by my father – also an engineer and qualified in those aspects. And in the office – you said your father was away – were you actually running the office? Yes, I ran the office because all the people in there knew me; I'd been in and out of the place like a rabbit since I was a little boy and ... at that stage of the game I had enough in me for them to respect me; they were very co-operative people. They knew I knew what I was doing. And then you did know what you were doing? Oh yes. Mmm. Um, you see, I had the authority for everything. I had to put in the returns; the sales tax; the ... fill the contract applications which were made for ... various government bodies used to require contracts to be made. I used to ... I had the authority for signing of all cheques, the payment of wages, the calculation, the hiring and the firing; I did all that. And I continued to do that, of course, up till the time I left Australia ... just in ... it was only a short while after the war started. Um, I ... having been qualified with the Leaving Certificate, I then got what I wanted, and that was entrance into the course of chemical engineering at the Sydney Technical College under the ... Dr R. K. O. Murphy, and I did first and second year, and then Dr Murphy said, `Your work with heliography is not sufficient and adequate to fulfil the requirements of a chemical engineer and you've got to do something else – at least for a COLIN CAMPBELL Page 4 of 34 while'. So, at that time a man walked in and asked me to reproduce a bag full of ... make some photos of a bag full of gold, which I did. I laid it all out on a photostat table – all in its various gradations – and ... um ... I said I was very interested in all that and he said, `Well, what about coming to Guadalcanal with me and ... you'd be a good engineer up there. You could do the assay work'. And that's how it happened. So I – almost immediately – left and went into Guadalcanal jungle; which was a place not heard of in those days, really. There were only a few coconut plantations and a ... two missionary stations. (5.00) This is what – '38, '37? That was early '39. Um, I stayed in the jungle for one year – lived in leaf houses – and ... actually, not on the coast but up in the [Sudekiki?] River at a 3,200 foot level. Um, during that time I had a very interesting experiences because I came to know a fellow named Paul Neen; he was a captain ... um ... you see, it was a British protectorate but it was a British army captain who was the district officer for the whole of Guadalcanal under the ... now what did they call him, the administrator of the Solomon Islands – senior – was Mr Marchant. Now he happened to be in the ship that took me up – that was the [Malaita?] – that took me up to Guadalcanal. And so he gave me a good introduction to Paul Neen, and Paul Neen said to me, `You know, you're healthy' – 'cause I had been there for a little while and I was very fit – and he said, `I'm fit. The two of us should tackle Mount Popomanaseu and see if we can be the first white people to reach the top of it'. How high was that? Eight thousand one hundred and fifty feet. So, we did, and ... the reason I'm telling you about this is because I met Paul Neen again later – if you wish to hear – when I was being prepared to go overseas by the navy as an anti-submarine officer. I met him in Flinders Naval College – long since extinct as a college – um, he was being trained as a ... in all the aspects of coast watching, and I should mention that I nearly got caught in all that too, but anyway, Paul Neen did go back, and unfortunately the Japanese got him and they tied him to a post and disembowelled him. But that man meant a lot to me because it was his initiative ... that led us to go to the top of Mount Popomanaseu. Anyway, going on from there ... having been there a year and I had a lot of malaria and I ... had all sorts of ulcers and quite a lot of the crowd that went up had to come back and didn't return because they were too ill and it was very hard living. Um ... What do you mean, they went back to Australia and didn't return? Yes. Well, they weren't fit any more. And, um, so I actually survived a year quite well and then, when I went out – I wanted to come home and get my teeth done properly and I'd have a rest and one thing and another – and ... the commissioner – that was Mr Marchant – said, `Oh, you've got to return because this is now a war and you're in a reserved occupation. We need the work done, that's retrieving the gold that's here and ... and I hope you understand that'. And I said, `Yes', and he said, `Well, I'm giving you a letter saying that's what you're to do'. Well, he's British, you see, and I was Australian, so he didn't really have much control over me and I recognised that point, so when I came back – I actually was very sick with malaria for, oh, about five weeks – and then when I got better, I put my suit on one day and I went into Rushcutter and I said, `I want to be a sailor', and the fellow said, `Well, you've got to go and put your application in front of the ..
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